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I've rarely been more aware than during Steven Spielberg's "Lincoln" that Abraham Lincoln was a plain-spoken, practical, down-to-earth man from the farmlands of Kentucky, Indiana and Illinois. He had less than a year of formal education and taught himself through his hungry reading of great books. I still recall from a childhood book the image of him taking a piece of charcoal and working out mathematics by writing on the back of a shovel.

Lincoln lacked social polish but he had great intelligence and knowledge of human nature. The hallmark of the man, performed so powerfully by Daniel Day-Lewis in "Lincoln," is calm self-confidence, patience and a willingness to play politics in a realistic way. The film focuses on the final months of Lincoln's life, including the passage of the 13th Amendment ending slavery, the surrender of the Confederacy and his assassination. Rarely has a film attended more carefully to the details of politics.

Lincoln believed slavery was immoral, but he also considered the 13th Amendment a masterstroke in cutting away the financial foundations of the Confederacy. In the film, the passage of the amendment is guided by William Seward ( David Strathairn ), his secretary of state, and by Rep. Thaddeus Stevens ( Tommy Lee Jones ), the most powerful abolitionist in the House. Neither these nor any other performances in the film depend on self-conscious histrionics; Jones in particular portrays a crafty codger with some secret hiding places in his heart.

The capital city of Washington is portrayed here as roughshod gathering of politicians on the make. The images by Janusz Kaminski , Spielberg's frequent cinematographer, use earth tones and muted indoor lighting. The White House is less a temple of state than a gathering place for wheelers and dealers. This ambience reflects the descriptions in Gore Vidal's historical novel "Lincoln," although the political and personal details in Tony Kushner's concise, revealing dialogue is based on "Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln" by Doris Kearns Goodwin. The book is well-titled. This is a film not about an icon of history, but about a president who was scorned by some of his political opponents as just a hayseed from the backwoods.

Lincoln is not above political vote buying. He offers jobs, promotions, titles and pork barrel spending. He isn't even slightly reluctant to employ the low-handed tactics of his chief negotiators (Tim Blake Nelson , James Spader , John Hawkes ). That's how the game is played, and indeed we may be reminded of the arm-bending used to pass the civil rights legislation by Lyndon B. Johnson, the subject of another biography by Goodwin.

Daniel Day-Lewis, who has a lock on an Oscar nomination, modulates Lincoln. He is soft-spoken, a little hunched, exhausted after the years of war, concerned that no more troops die. He communicates through stories and parables. At his side is his wife, Mary Todd Lincoln ( Sally Field , typically sturdy and spunky), who is sometimes seen as a social climber but here is focused as wife and mother. She has already lost one son in the war and fears to lose the other. This boy, Robert Todd Lincoln ( Joseph Gordon-Levitt ), refuses the privileges of family.

There are some battlefields in "Lincoln" but the only battle scene is at the opening, when the words of the Gettysburg Address are spoken with the greatest possible impact, and not by Lincoln. Kushner also smoothly weaves the wording of the 13th Amendment into the film without making it sound like an obligatory history lesson.

The film ends soon after Lincoln's assassination. I suppose audiences will expect that to be included. There is an earlier shot, when it could have ended, of President Lincoln walking away from the camera after his amendment has been passed. The rest belongs to history.

Roger Ebert

Roger Ebert was the film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, he won the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism.

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Film credits.

Lincoln (2012)

Rated PG-13 for an intense scene of war violence, some images of carnage and brief strong language

149 minutes

Daniel Day-Lewis as Lincoln

Tommy Lee Jones as Stevens

Sally Field as Mary Todd

David Strathairn as Seward

Directed by

Steven Spielberg
Tony Kushner

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Lincoln Movie Reflection

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Lincoln – review

S teven Spielberg has made more obviously entertaining and more emotionally seductive movies than Lincoln , but this is for him the most brave and, for the audience, most demanding picture in the 40 years since his emergence as a major director. It's a film about statesmanship, politics, the creation of the world's greatest democracy, and it's concerned with what we can learn from the study and contemplation of history. Spielberg and his eloquent screenwriter, the playwright Tony Kushner, handle these themes with flair, imagination and vitality, and Daniel Day-Lewis embodies them with an indelible intelligence as the 16th president of the United States

Lincoln begins a year before the end of the civil war with the movie's only battle scene. It's a minute of the bloody, hand-to-hand combat at Jenkins' Ferry, Arkansas, that by a brilliant piece of editing legerdemain is transformed into two black soldiers recalling the battle while talking to Lincoln about the future of the Union. The scene establishes the rock-like physical presence of the war-weary president, his warmth, modesty and humanity. The picture concludes a year later with a non-triumphalist coda that follows five days after Confederate general Robert E Lee's surrender.

With immense adroitness Spielberg avoids the high drama of the actual assassination at Ford's theatre on 14 April 1865, showing us the news being broken to Lincoln's young son, Tad, at another theatre and then bringing us to Lincoln's deathbed where secretary of war Edwin Stanton pronounces the celebrated epitaph: "Now he belongs to the ages" (though he might actually have said "to the angels"). This is followed by a brief concluding flashback to Lincoln's second inaugural address a month earlier, with its cautious message of hope and realism.

The heart of the film is a few weeks in January 1865 in an overcast wintry Washington between Lincoln's second election and his inauguration. In this brief moment of opportunity he's faced with a crucial decision. Should he end this bloody war, one of the most costly, bitter and divisive in modern history, by a compromising peace with the Confederate enemy? Or should he make a final attempt to persuade the House of Representatives to reverse an earlier decision and enact the 13th Amendment to the constitution? This would declare that "neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction".

This incendiary issue – involving the abolition of slavery and all this might entail for equality in all its forms – is at the centre of this drama. Lincoln must handle it on a variety of fronts: the military, the electorate, a Congress divided on this issue, and his own family. As Doris Kearns Goodwin shows in her book Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln , the key source of the film's screenplay, he had astutely brought together gifted people who'd been his opponents in order both to wage war and to advance his social, moral and political policies. And the film is about the way this principled statesman and wily politician was ready to bend rules, reinterpret the law and manipulate people, but always with the object of serving democracy and securing America's moral leadership on the world stage.

Lincoln is playing a deadly game, juggling a variety of balls. Simultaneously he must hold his cabinet together with the particular help of his closest, most honest confidant, secretary of state Seward (David Strathairn), to gather the votes necessary to secure the vote he needs in Congress and keep secret the presence of a top peace-seeking delegation from the south. Beyond this he must reassure his generals that the war will be prosecuted with full intensity, and he must deal with his family. His eldest son Robert wants to leave university and serve in the army, while his wife, the troubled and devoted Mary (Sally Field), cannot bear to lose another son after the death of her beloved William, who died three years earlier.

There is, too, another strand, almost a film in itself and a source of both fun and realism, in the presence of three political fixers, Washington lobbyists before the term was coined. Colourfully played by James Spader, John Hawkes and Tim Blake Nelson, they're cynical idealists, getting people to change their minds by bribery, blackmail and coercion. They're part of a gallery of more than 100 speaking roles, all significant in their way, and they impose themselves on us in a brisk, lucid story that's superbly edited, designed and photographed. John Williams's score, however, is somewhat overemphatic.

At the centre of this bustling social panorama is Lincoln: explaining himself through endless anecdotes and folksy memories; quoting Shakespeare, the Bible and Euclid to make his ideas persuasive; exploiting his simple eloquence to get people to do what's right; knowing just when and where to press his advantage. He grows old before our eyes and we believe it when Grant tells him that he's aged a decade over the past year.

In a towering performance, Day-Lewis encompasses the great statesman who shaped history, the intimate man of the people and the mysterious, charismatic figure who so fascinated Picasso that he collected thousands of pictures of him and once held up a photograph of Lincoln, proclaiming: "There is the real American elegance!"

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A President Engaged in a Great Civil War

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By A.O. Scott

Nov. 8, 2012

It is something of a paradox that American movies — a great democratic art form, if ever there was one — have not done a very good job of representing American democracy. Make-believe movie presidents are usually square-jawed action heroes, stoical Solons or ineffectual eggheads, blander and more generically appealing than their complicated real-life counterparts, who tend to be treated deferentially or ignored entirely unless they are named Richard Nixon .

The legislative process — the linchpin of our system of checks and balances — is often treated with lofty contempt masquerading as populist indignation, an attitude typified by the aw-shucks antipolitics of “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.” Hollywood dreams of consensus, of happy endings and box office unity, but democratic government can present an interminable tale of gridlock, compromise and division. The squalor and vigor, the glory and corruption of the Republic in action have all too rarely made it onto the big screen.

There are exceptions, of course, and one of them is Steven Spielberg’s splendid “Lincoln,” which is, strictly speaking, about a president trying to scare up votes to get a bill passed in Congress. It is of course about a lot more than that, but let’s stick to the basics for now. To say that this is among the finest films ever made about American politics may be to congratulate it for clearing a fairly low bar. Some of the movie’s virtues are, at first glance, modest ones, like those of its hero, who is pleased to present himself as a simple backwoods lawyer, even as his folksy mannerisms mask a formidable and cunning political mind.

After a brutal, kinetic beginning — a scene of muddy, hand-to-hand combat that evokes the opening of “Saving Private Ryan”— “Lincoln” settles down into what looks like the familiar pageantry and speechifying of costume drama. A flock of first-rate character actors parades by in the heavy woolen plumage of the past. The smaller, plainer America of the mid-19th century is evoked by the brownish chiaroscuro of Janusz Kaminski’s cinematography, by the mud, brick and wood of Rick Carter’s production design and by enough important facial hair to make the young beard farmers of 21st-century Brooklyn weep tears of envy.

The most famous and challenging beard of them all sits on the chin of Daniel Day-Lewis, who eases into a role of epic difficulty as if it were a coat he had been wearing for years. It is both a curiosity and a marvel of modern cinema that this son of an Anglo-Irish poet should have become our leading portrayer of archaic Americans. Hawkeye (in “Last of the Mohicans”), Bill the Butcher (“Gangs of New York”), Daniel Plainview (“There Will Be Blood”) — all are figures who live in the dim borderlands of memory and myth, but with his angular frame and craggy features, Mr. Day-Lewis turns them into flesh and blood.

Above all, he gives them voice. His Lincoln speaks in a reedy drawl that provides a notable counterpoint to the bombastic bellowing of some of his allies and adversaries. (John Williams’s score echoes this contrast by punctuating passages of orchestral grandeur with homey scraps of fiddle, banjo and parlor piano.)

The script, by Tony Kushner, is attentive to the idioms of the time without being too showy about it. Lincoln is eloquent in the manner of the self-taught provincial prodigy he was, his speech informed by voracious reading and also by the tall tales and dirty jokes he heard growing up in the frontier country of Kentucky and Illinois. He uses words like “shindee” and “flib-flub” and likes to regale (and exasperate) his cabinet with homespun parables, shaggy dog stories and bits of outhouse humor. His salty native wit is complemented by the clear and lofty lyricism that has come down to us in his great speeches.

The main business of “Lincoln” is framed by two of those, the Gettysburg Address — quoted back to the president by awed Union soldiers on a January night in 1865 — and his Second Inaugural Address, which he delivered a little more than a month before the end of the Civil War and his own assassination. These are big, famous words and momentous events, and the task Mr. Spielberg and Mr. Kushner have set themselves is to make this well-known story fresh and surprising. Mr. Day-Lewis, for his part, must convey both the human particularity and the greatness of a man who is among the most familiar and the most enigmatic of American leaders. We carry him around in our pockets every day, and yet we still argue and wonder about who he was.

In this telling, drawn from parts of Doris Kearns Goodwin’s 2005 best seller, “Team of Rivals,” Lincoln the man is, for all his playfulness, prone to melancholy and attracted to solitude. He has a tender rapport with his young son Tad (Gulliver McGrath), and a difficult relationship with the boy’s older brother, Robert (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), who is furious that his parents have forbidden him to fight for the Union cause.

Lincoln’s wife, Mary — he calls her Molly, and she is played with just the right tinge of hysteria by Sally Field — is still grieving the loss of another son, Willie, from illness during the first year of the war, and her emotional instability is a constant worry to her husband. These private troubles combine with the strains of a wartime presidency to produce a portrait that is intimate but also decorous, drawn with extraordinary sensitivity and insight and focused, above all, on Lincoln’s character as a politician.

This is, in other words, less a biopic than a political thriller, a civics lesson that is energetically staged and alive with moral energy. Lincoln, having just won re-election, faces a complex predicament. The war has turned in the Union’s favor, but the Capitol is in some turmoil. Lincoln must contend with a Democratic opposition that reviles him as a dictator (“Abraham Africanus,” they call him) and also with a deep, factional split within the Republican Party.

The radicals, led by Thaddeus Stevens (Tommy Lee Jones), the sharp-tongued chairman of the Ways and Means Committee and an aging lion of the Abolitionist movement, demand a vote on a constitutional amendment ending slavery. The conservatives in the party, whose gray eminence is Preston Blair (Hal Holbrook), are lukewarm at best, preferring to push for peace talks with the Confederacy that evade a decisive solution to the problem of slavery.

The legal and ideological questions surrounding what would become (spoiler alert for those who slept through high school history) the 13th Amendment to the Constitution are crisply and cogently illustrated. Once Lincoln has decided that ratification is both the right and necessary thing to do, he has to hold his party together and also pick up a handful of votes from lame-duck Democratic congressmen.

William Seward (David Strathairn), his secretary of state and wartime consigliere, engages three shady characters — high-spirited hucksters (played by Tim Blake Nelson, John Hawkes and James Spader) who could have stumbled out of the pages of Mark Twain — to lure a few susceptible candidates with promises of patronage jobs once they leave the Congress. With others, Stevens’s arm-twisting proves more effective. The better angels of our nature sometimes need earthly inducements to emerge.

And the genius of “Lincoln,” finally, lies in its vision of politics as a noble, sometimes clumsy dialectic of the exalted and the mundane. Our habit of argument, someone said recently, is a mark of our liberty, and Mr. Kushner, whose love of passionate, exhaustive disputation is unmatched in the modern theater, fills nearly every scene with wonderful, maddening talk. Mr. Spielberg’s best art often emerges in passages of wordlessness, when the images speak for themselves, and the way he composes his pictures and cuts between them endow the speeches and debates with emotional force, and remind us of what is at stake.

The question facing Lincoln is stark: Should he abolish slavery, once and for all, even if it means prolonging the war? The full weight and scale of this dilemma are the central lesson “Lincoln” asks us to grasp. The film places slavery at the center of the story, emphatically countering the revisionist tendency to see some other, more abstract thing — states’ rights, Southern culture, industrial capitalism — as the real cause of the Civil War. Though most of the characters are white (two notable and vital exceptions are Stephen Henderson and Gloria Reuben, as the Lincolns’ household servants), this is finally a movie about how difficult and costly it has been for the United States to recognize the full and equal humanity of black people.

There is no end to this story, which may be why Mr. Spielberg’s much-noted fondness for multiple denouements is in evidence here. There are at least five moments at which the narrative and the themes seem to have arrived at a place of rest. (The most moving for me is a quiet scene when the 13th Amendment is read aloud. I won’t give away by whom.) But the movie keeps going, building a symphony of tragedy and hope that celebrates Lincoln’s great triumph while acknowledging the terror, disappointment and other complications to come.

Some of the ambition of “Lincoln” seems to be to answer the omissions and distortions of the cinematic past, represented by great films like D. W. Griffith’s “Birth of a Nation,” which glorified the violent disenfranchisement of African-Americans as a heroic second founding, and “Gone With the Wind,” with its romantic view of the old South. To paraphrase what Woodrow Wilson said of Griffith, Mr. Spielberg writes history with lightning.

Go see this movie. Take your children, even though they may occasionally be confused or fidgety. Boredom and confusion are also part of democracy, after all. “Lincoln” is a rough and noble democratic masterpiece — an omen, perhaps, that movies for the people shall not perish from the earth.

“ Lincoln” is rated PG-13 (Parents strongly cautioned). Violence and strong language.

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Review: Steven Spielberg’s ‘Lincoln’ a towering achievement

Kenneth Turan reviews ‘Lincoln’.

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Hollywood’s most successful director turns on a dime and delivers his most restrained, interior film. A celebrated playwright shines an illuminating light on no more than a sliver of a great man’s life. A brilliant actor surpasses even himself and makes us see a celebrated figure in ways we hadn’t anticipated. This is the power and the surprise of “Lincoln.”

Directed by Steven Spielberg, written by Tony Kushner and starring Daniel Day-Lewis as the 16th president of the United States, “Lincoln” unfolds during the final four months of the chief executive’s life as he focuses his energies on a dramatic struggle that has not previously loomed large in political mythology: his determination to get the House of Representatives to pass the 13th Amendment outlawing slavery.

This narrow focus has paradoxically enabled us to see Lincoln whole in a way a more broad-ranging film might have been unable to match. It has also made for a movie whose pleasures are subtle ones, that knows how to reveal the considerable drama inherent in the overarching battle of big ideas over the amendment as well as the small-bore skirmishes of political strategy and the nitty-gritty scramble for congressional votes.

VIDEO: ‘Lincoln’ trailer

These things all begin, as thoughtful films invariably do, with an excellent script. A Pulitzer Prize-winner for “Angels in America,” Kushner has always been adept at illuminating the interplay of the personal and the political. His literate screenplay, based on parts of Doris Kearns Goodwin’s “Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Lincoln,” is smart, dramatic and confident of the value of what it has to say.

Kushner has worked with Spielberg before (he co-wrote the Oscar-nominated “Munich” script) and his writing seems to bring out a level of restraint in their productions. There is nothing bravura or overly emotional about Spielberg’s direction here, but the impeccable filmmaking is no less impressive for being quiet and to the point. The director delivers selfless, pulled-back satisfactions: he’s there in service of the script and the acting, to enhance the spoken word rather than burnish his reputation.

The key speaker, obviously, is Day-Lewis. No one needs to be told at this late date what a consummate actor he is, but even those used to the way he disappears into roles will be startled by the marvelously relaxed way he morphs into this character and simply becomes Lincoln. While his heroic qualities are visible when they’re needed, Day-Lewis’ Lincoln is a deeply human individual, stooped and weary after four years of civil war but endowed with a palpable largeness of spirit and a genuine sense of humor.

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At ease in his own skin, Lincoln wears a shawl around the White House like he was born with it and is so prone to telling tales at every opportunity that his fed-up Secretary of War Edwin Stanton (Bruce McGill) snaps in exasperation, “No, you’re not going to tell a story. I can’t bear to hear one.”

Though Day-Lewis’ work inevitably towers over “Lincoln,” one of the remarkable things about this production is not only how consistently good the acting is across some 145 speaking roles but how much the actors have been cast both for ability and resemblance to their historical counterparts, from major players such as Secretary of State William Seward (David Strathairn) and firebrand Congressman Thaddeus Stevens (Tommy Lee Jones) down to minor characters like amendment opponent Fernando Wood (Lee Pace) and Lincoln’s secretary John Nicolay (Jeremy Strong).

Working with his usual team of equals — cinematographer Janusz Kaminski, production designer Rick Carter, editor Michael Kahn, costume designer Joanna Johnston and composer John Williams — Spielberg has paid particular attention to creating a realistic world for his characters to inhabit, seeping us in the period and seeing to it that the color scheme and the muted lighting enhance the film’s naturalistic palette.

BUZZMETER: How ‘Lincoln’ is holding up in the awards race

Care was taken with the physical details as well, especially the interior of the White House, where Lincoln’s office was re-created with complete accuracy, and where the president interacts with his family, trying to placate his ever-emotional wife Mary (a convincing Sally Field), distraught after the death of their young son Willie, as well as oldest son Robert (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), who is desperate to enlist in the Union Army against his parents’ wishes.

The political core of “Lincoln” begins with the president’s determination, much to the displeasure of close advisor Seward, to get the House to pass the 13th Amendment. Fearful that the previously enacted Emancipation Proclamation might not stand up to legal challenges, Lincoln gets surprisingly steely as he insists that this simply must be done if slavery is to be permanently eradicated. The problem is getting the votes.

To help make this happen, Seward brings in a trio of arm-twisters, the 1860s versions of today’s lobbyists, who are charged by a president not shy about saying he is “clothed in immense power” to use any means necessary to round up the needed congressional votes. This trio, amusingly played by John Hawkes, James Spader and Tim Blake Nelson, are as close to comic relief as “Lincoln” gets.

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Because the stakes are so high, and because he turns out to be a master strategist, the president himself inevitably gets personally involved in playing politics. He deals with key leaders like Preston Blair (Hal Holbrook), a conservative Republican who is eager for peace talks with the South, and of course Jones’ Stevens, an irascible, vitriolic abolitionist (“the meanest man in Congress” according to Roy Blount Jr.) who is just getting warmed up when he calls an opponent a “fatuous nincompoop.”

One of the surprises and the pleasures of “Lincoln” is its portrait of the president as a man gifted at reconciling irreconcilable points of view, someone who wouldn’t hesitate to play both ends against the middle and even stretch the truth in the service of the greater good.

Kushner has said that he wrote “Lincoln” because, upset at today’s endemic lack of faith in governance, he wanted to tell a story that “shows that you can achieve miraculous, beautiful things through the democratic system.” It’s a lesson that couldn’t be more timely, or more thoroughly dramatic.

MPAA rating: PG-13 for an intense scene of war violence, some images of carnage and brief strong language

Running time: 2 hours, 29 minutes

Playing: In limited release

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Movie Interviews

We ask a historian: just how accurate is 'lincoln'.

Lincoln biographer Ronald White lauds the accuracy of Daniel Day-Lewis' depiction of the 16th president. DreamWorks hide caption

A great many families going to the movies over this Thanksgiving weekend will probably see Lincoln , Steven Spielberg's new film starring Daniel Day-Lewis and an impressive cast.

Based on a biography by Doris Kearns Goodwin, but scripted by playwright and screenwriter Tony Kushner, it's been very well-reviewed, but here's a question: How true to history is it?

Ronald White, author of A. Lincoln: A Biography , tells NPR's Linda Wertheimer that if a ninth-grader were to write a school paper based on the film, she'd find that its "dramatic core" is basically on target.

Interview Highlights

On the film's overall historical correctness

"The dramatic core of this remarkable four months of trying to pass the 13th Amendment [which banned slavery] is true. Is every word true? No. Did Lincoln say, 'And to unborn generations ...'? No. But this is not a documentary. And so I think the delicate balance or blend between history and dramatic art comes off quite well."

On William Seward and the three lobbyists he employs

"I think the movie is wanting in one way to disabuse us of the sense that Lincoln is this high-minded idealist who wouldn't stoop to using the machine to get votes. And [Secretary of State] Seward — remember, he was Lincoln's chief rival for the Republican nomination for president — is a shrewd politician. He's in this with Lincoln; he's not an unwilling co-conspirator. And he's willing to do things sort of outside the box, that Lincoln perhaps can't do. I doubt that Lincoln actually met these three men, but Seward delivers the votes [on the 13th Amendment] in a variety of ways."

On the over-the-top drama of House debates in the film

"You don't hear anything in the House anymore; you only hear someone giving an address for C-SPAN. I mean, one of the wonderful parts of the movie is that all of them are there, they're listening; some of them are going to be persuaded. It suggests an earlier time of a much more active Congress."

On radical Republican leader Thaddeus Stevens, played as a hero by Tommy Lee Jones in Lincoln , but as a villain in 1942's Tennessee Johnson

"The earlier movie ... was produced before the civil rights movement, or in the Gone With the Wind movement, when yes, abolitionists were evil guys. Now, since the civil rights movement, we see them as courageous leaders advocating rights for African-Americans, and so we have a different viewpoint on Thaddeus Stevens. I think the movie gets it right here."

On Kate Maser's New York Times op-ed, which criticized the film for keeping black people quietly in the background

"I think that's a point well taken. And what the audience doesn't fully understand, in the final scene — almost the final scene — where suddenly African-Americans arrive in the balcony as the final vote is to be taken, that one of those is Charles Douglass, the son of Frederick Douglass. Charles had fought in the famous Massachusetts 54th; he will write to his father after that climactic vote: 'Oh, Father, how wonderful it is. People were cheering, they were crying tears of joy.' So that had the potential for more black agency, but it doesn't come to full fruition in the film."

On whether freeing the slaves was the prime motive of Abraham Lincoln, as the film suggests

"I think we still don't understand, sadly, although historians have been telling us this for a generation — that slavery really was a cause of the war. However, Lincoln did start the war to save the Union; he did not start the war originally to free the slaves. But that became a purpose for him when he realized that he could no longer move forward without a true understanding of liberty and union. He ran in 1864 for re-election on the slogan 'Liberty and Union,' and so it becomes the second purpose of the Civil War."

On Daniel Day-Lewis

"I was very pleased with Daniel Day-Lewis' depiction of Lincoln. He does a delicate balance between the homely Lincoln — the homespun Lincoln — and the high Lincoln of the second inaugural address. He walks like Lincoln, the way he puts his feet down one at a time. He talks like Lincoln — not the baritone voice of Disneyland, but the high tenor voice. Daniel Day-Lewis studied Lincoln intensely, and what comes out is a very accurate depiction of the spirit of the man."

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‘lincoln’: film review.

Daniel Day-Lewis stars as the 16th president in the historical drama directed by Steven Spielberg and written by Tony Kushner.

By Todd McCarthy

Todd McCarthy

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Far from being a traditional biographical drama, Lincoln dedicates itself to doing something very few Hollywood films have ever attempted, much less succeeded at: showing, from historical example, how our political system works in an intimate procedural and personal manner. That the case in point is the hair-breadth passage by the House of Representatives of the epochal 13th Amendment abolishing slavery and that the principal orchestrator is President Abraham Lincoln in the last days of his life endow Steven Spielberg ‘s film with a great theme and subject, which are honored with intelligence, humor and relative restraint. Tony Kushner ‘s densely packed script has been directed by Spielberg in an efficient, unpretentious way that suggests Michael Curtiz at Warner Bros. in the 1940s, right down to the rogue’s gallery of great character actors in a multitude of bewhiskered supporting roles backing up a first-rate leading performance by Daniel Day-Lewis . The wall-to-wall talk and lack of much Civil War action might give off the aroma of schoolroom medicine to some, but the elemental drama being played out, bolstered by the prestige of the participants and a big push by Disney, should make this rare film about American history pay off commercially.

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Daniel Day-Lewis delivers an unimpeachable performance in Steven Spielberg's shrewd, stately and somewhat stuffy drama focused on a narrow yet defining chapter of Abraham Lincoln's life: abolishing slavery via the passage of a Constitutional amendment.

By Peter Debruge

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Abraham Lincoln may not technically be the subject of Steven Spielberg’s “Lincoln,” but Daniel Day-Lewis is inarguably its star, delivering an unimpeachable performance as the United States’ 16th president in a shrewd, stately and somewhat stuffy drama focused on a narrow yet defining chapter of Lincoln’s life: abolishing slavery via the passage of a Constitutional amendment. Though historians will surely find room to quibble, every choice Day-Lewis makes lends dignity and gravitas to America’s most revered figure, resulting in an event movie whose commercial and critical fate rides on the reputations of not just Lincoln, but the esteemed creative team as well.

Too seldom does American cinema deal with the country’s most shameful policy: the paradox by which a nation founded on equality might allow the subjugation and servitude of one race to persist for nearly a century. Spielberg, however, has faced the issue head-on, not just once (“ The Color Purple “) or twice (“Amistad”), but three times, confronting it most directly — at the very core of the policy — in “Lincoln.” The title functions as something of a misnomer, considering that the president here serves as the instrument to emancipation and not the actual focus of the film, as if “Amistad” had been released as “Quincy Adams.”

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Liberally adapted from Doris Kearns Goodwin ‘s 2005 book “Team of Rivals,” Tony Kushner ‘s script dramatizes the behind-the-scenes story of the wheeling and dealing required to pass the 13th Amendment — undoubtedly the legacy for which Lincoln hoped to be remembered, not realizing how compelling audiences would find every aspect of his private life 144 years later.

The theater-trained scribe, who previously co-wrote “Munich” for the director, defies what admirers expect of a Spielberg-made Lincoln biopic. In place of vicarious emotion and tour de force filmmaking, “Lincoln” offers a largely static intellectual reappraisal of the great orator, limiting not only the scenery chewing but also the scenery itself in what amounts to Spielberg’s most play-like production yet; it’s a style that will keep many viewers at arm’s length.

Emphasizing talk over action, Kushner concentrates on Lincoln’s strategy of forcing an unpopular and recently defeated policy through a lame-duck House of Representatives. Enlisting three buffoonish vote-buyers (James Spader, John Hawkes and Tim Blake Nelson ), the executive doesn’t hesitate to exploit his immense powers, which extend to offering cushy government jobs, pardons and other presidential privileges to those willing to embrace his position.

This is politics as it is really played, yet few writers have found a way to make it as compelling as Kushner does here. That success owes in part to the extensive character-actor ensemble Spielberg and casting director Avy Kaufman have enlisted, repaying them with dramatic roles for not only Lincoln’s entire cabinet (most prominently David Strathairn as Secretary of State William Seward), but more than a dozen key allies and opponents of the 13th Amendment, including Lee Pace as a showboating Democrat, Michael Stuhlbarg as a conscience-conflicted swing voter and David Costabile as the doubting Thomas among Lincoln’s closest supporters.

Despite occasional digressions into spectacular but artificial-looking Civil War battlefields, the action is rowdiest on the floor of Congress, where Republican representative Thaddeus Stevens ( Tommy Lee Jones ) trades scathing barbs with such ideological rivals as George Pendleton (Peter McRobbie, who more closely resembles frown-creased portraits of the real-life Stevens than Jones does). Though the film inevitably deals with Lincoln’s assassination, notably played offscreen, the climax comes during the Congressional vote itself, in which Spielberg allows the names of history’s heroes to ring out the way he previously did those saved on Schindler’s list. Even more effective is the way Kushner integrates the full text of the Gettysburg Address and the 13th Amendment into the body of the film.

Still, since audiences inevitably prefer personal intrigue to the inner workings of politics, Kushner laces “Lincoln” with details about first lady “Molly” ( Sally Field ), as Abe called his wife, Mary, and sons Tad (Gulliver McGrath) and Robert (Joseph Gordon Levitt), who withdraws from Harvard in order to enlist in the Union army, despite his father’s adamant demands to the contrary. Still, these human-interest scenes seem to get in the way of the story at hand, offering valuable, intimate glimpses of the Lincolns as seldom seen before, yet inorganic to the abolition of slavery — save one powerful scene, when Mary, having already lost one son and loathe to watch Robert perish in the Civil War, publicly threatens her husband, “If you fail to acquire the necessary votes, woe unto you, you will have to answer to me.” Spielberg and Kushner hold this truth to be self-evident: that behind every powerful man is a woman pushing him toward greatness.

Informed largely by Goodwin’s research, “Lincoln” presents an image of the president very different from the melancholy figure so often seen before. Such crushing grief falls instead to Field, whose long-suffering Mary endured debilitating migraines and deep depression after the death of their son Willie, but also scandalously overspent in her efforts to outfit the White House — and herself — to a level she felt befitting the first family. Curiously, Mary was a decade Abraham’s junior, though Field is actually a decade older than Day-Lewis, creating an odd, almost maternal dynamic between the two actors.

Meanwhile, Day-Lewis plays Lincoln as a physically awkward but not unhandsome figure, gentle with his children, uncomfortable with ceremony (his disdain of calfskin gloves becomes a running joke), and firm when needed with colleagues who could not always see the wisdom in the man some considered “the capitulating compromiser.” This Lincoln is a lover of theater and avid raconteur who easily quotes from Shakespeare and scripture, a man who problem-solves via storytelling — an impression that naturally flatters those in Spielberg and Kushner’s profession.

Perhaps that explains the staginess of “Lincoln’s” telling, right down to the creak of the boards under the great orator’s feet and d.p. Janusz Kaminski ‘s conservative framing, which recalls either classic prosceniums or heavily shadowed Renaissance paintings. Though incongruous with the psychological realism that Kushner, through elevated dialogue, aims to achieve, this iconic style suits such a beloved persona.

And yet, Lincoln’s life takes a backseat to the ideological battle between two opposing ideas — an end to slavery, or an end to war. The result looks as much like a Natural History Museum diorama as it sounds: a respectful but waxy re-creation that feels somehow awe-inspiring yet chillingly lifeless to behold, the great exception being Jones’ alternately blistering and sage turn as Stevens.

Production values are as elegant as one would expect from Spielberg, grittier but no less impressionistic than last year’s “War Horse.” John Williams’ score, which seemingly incorporates hymns, marches and other period music, offers vital but unobtrusive support.

Production: A Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures release of a DreamWorks Pictures, 20th Century Fox and Reliance Entertainment presentation in association with Participant Media and Dune Entertainment of an Amblin Entertainment/Kennedy/Marshall Co. production. Produced by Steven Spielberg, Kathleen Kennedy. Executive producers, Jonathan King, Daniel Lupi, Jeff Skoll. Co-producers, Kristie Macosko Krieger, Adam Somner. Directed by Steven Spielberg. Screenplay, Tony Kushner, based in part on the book "Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln" by Doris Kearns Goodwin.
Crew: Camera (Deluxe color, widescreen), Janusz Kaminski; editor, Michael Kahn; music, John Williams; production designer, Rick Carter; art directors, Curt Beech, David Crank, Leslie McDonald; set decorator, Jim Erickson; costume designer, Joanna Johnston; sound (Dolby Digital/SDDS/Datasat), Ron Judkins; sound designer, Ben Burtt; supervising sound editor, Richard Hymns; re-recording mixers, Andy Nelson, Gary Rydstrom; special effects coordinator, Steve Cremin; visual effects supervisors, Ben Morris, Garan Miljkovich; visual effects, Framestore, the Garage VFX; stunt coordinator, Garrett Warren; assistant director, Adam Somner; casting, Avy Kaufman. Reviewed at Pacific Design Center, West Hollywood, Calif., Oct. 25, 2012. (In AFI Fest -- closer.) MPAA Rating: PG-13. Running time: 149 MIN.
With: Abraham Lincoln - Daniel Day-Lewis Mary Todd Lincoln - Sally Field Secretary of State William Seward - David Strathairn Robert Todd Lincoln - Joseph Gordon-Levitt WN Bilbo - James Spader Francis Preston Blair - Hal Holbrook Thaddeus Stevens - Tommy Lee Jones Fernando Wood - Lee Pace George Zeaman - Michael Stuhlbarg James Ashley - David Costabile Alexander Stephens - Jackie Earle Haley Lydia Smith - S. Epatha Merkerson Ulysses S. Grant - Jared Harris With: John Hawkes, Walton Goggins, Bruce McGill, David Oyelowo, Julie White, Adam Driver, Gulliver McGrath, Tim Blake Nelson, Gregory Itzin, Gloria Reuben, Jeremy Strong, Christopher Boyer, John Hutton.

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Movie Review: Lincoln (2012)

Charlie Juhl
Movie Reviews
13 responses
--> November 15, 2012

Lincoln (2012) by The Critical Movie Critics

Leading the North.

In 2012, Abraham Lincoln is on currency, in hundreds of dusty books, and sitting in a chair in his own memorial at one end of the National Mall. His image is stale; he is not a man, but an unknowable symbol. Steven Spielberg, however, fashions the legend into a flesh and blood human being in his biopic Lincoln . This Abraham (Daniel Day-Lewis) tells jokes, argues with his wife, and walks with a hunch in his shoulders as if an imaginary weight bears down on them. Lincoln is no longer just 25% of Mt. Rushmore, he is the most fascinating, sympathetic, and memorable character you will see on a movie screen this year.

Hard choices must be made to tell Abraham Lincoln’s story. Do you start with his birth and childhood? Do you cover his early legal and congressional career? Which part of his presidency do you focus on and if you include the assassination, will that be most of the story or just the end? Spielberg and writer Tony Kushner, who bases his screenplay on Doris Kearns Goodwin’s book “Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln,” decide to focus not just on Lincoln’s presidency, but on a very specific time just after his re-election in January 1865. The Civil War is entering its fourth year and hundreds of thousands are dead on bloodied battlefields, yet there is a sense in the air that the war’s conclusion is near. It is anyone’s guess how it will end, but that does not stop them from discussing what will come after during Reconstruction. Some argue for the Union to take revenge against the south instead of leniency, some argue for a negotiated peace instead of an official surrender, and some argue for slavery’s return instead of full abolition.

Lincoln knows full well that at the war’s end, the courts may declare his Emancipation Proclamation illegal. The only way to ensure slavery’s demise is to pass an amendment to the Constitution (today it is the 13th Amendment). To do that, the House of Representatives must vote in favor of it with a two-thirds majority. But in 1865, there is no shortage of Congressmen who remain pro-slavery and dead set against the equaling of the races which they see as naturally separated by God. Convincing men to change their long standing beliefs seems an impossible task, and it is this task Lincoln, his Cabinet, and his cronies must accomplish if they hope to succeed.

Anyone paying attention in high school knows about the 13th Amendment and ultimately knows what will happen in the end. Therefore, it is a true credit to Spielberg, Kushner, and the cast that the process of its life in Congress is fraught with tension, suspense, and real emotions. Secretary of State Seward (David Strathairn) marshals the men who will do the arm twisting. The arm twisters, including Mr. Bilbo (James Spader) and Mr. Latham (John Hawkes) are greasy insiders promising patronage jobs and many other enticements to the fence-sitters. The fence-sitters are being pulled and pushed by their Congressional leaders including Thaddeus Stevens (Tommy Lee Jones) and Preston Blair (Hal Holbrook). Observing their debates from the balcony is Mary Todd Lincoln (Sally Field) who feels some shame from her earlier bouts of grief and depression over her deceased son Willie, yet remains determined to keep her oldest son, Robert (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), from enlisting.

Looking presidential.

Behind all of this vast political machinery, corruption, debating, and harsh words stands a weary man quick to tell a witty story to make his point and lead a torn country towards his vision of a united future. Lincoln is a masterpiece of filmmaking and is an unforgettable film to watch in a theater. It will be nominated for an array of Oscars with wins most likely for Day-Lewis and Spielberg. Daniel Day-Lewis may be the most gifted actor currently working when his chooses to take on a role, which only happens every other year or so (everybody still remembers Daniel Plainview from “ There Will Be Blood ” and Bill ‘The Butcher’ Cutting from “ Gangs of New York “). He raises his voice by what sounds like an entire octave to speak in what the historians say was Lincoln’s higher-pitched tone. He looks down at the table or the ground when in conversation but when required, he will command the room’s attention when he knows he must bind people together to do the right thing.

Crafting a biopic around a man as iconic as Abraham Lincoln requires a firm hand and concrete decision-making. If you include too much material from too many episodes in his life, the movie will feel stretched, light, and make much less of an impact on the audience because of its lack of depth in any particular area. By focusing Lincoln on a very specific and limited time frame, shaping the central conflict over one of the most transformative constitutional amendments, and employing actors who all give superior performances based on a stellar script, Spielberg has made what will most likely be the best film of the year and one which all should take the time and go see.

Tagged: civil war , novel adaptation , president , slavery

I like movies and they like me right back. You can find out how much by visiting my personal site Citizen Charlie .

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'Movie Review: Lincoln (2012)' have 13 comments

November 15, 2012 @ 10:32 pm Sparling

The takeaway from Lincoln is politicians were just as dirty then as they are now.

November 15, 2012 @ 11:00 pm Porknog

The Oscar is Day-Lewis’. No contest – just give it to him now and be done with it.

November 16, 2012 @ 6:00 pm Baconator

Same could be said for Spielberg.

November 15, 2012 @ 11:26 pm Grasshopper

SPOILER ALERT: Lincoln gets shot and dies.

November 16, 2012 @ 5:07 am Lain

One can only hope the powdered wig makes a comeback. Not only does Tommy Lee Jones own the part of Thaddeus Stevens he makes it look good too.

November 16, 2012 @ 10:19 am Chloe

My only gripe is the ending. Spielberg should have ended the film with Lee’s surrender at Appomattox. The addition of Lincoln’s assassination was unnecessary.

November 16, 2012 @ 12:22 pm Aspie182

Not much of a biopic. Damn good movie about the passage of the 13th ammendment but not a Lincoln biography.

November 16, 2012 @ 12:41 pm chacha

Lincoln is Spielberg at his directorial best. He made dramatic and engaging the political process which is, if you’ve ever watched CSPAN, a drag to watch.

November 17, 2012 @ 1:35 pm Luraly

Not his best. Character arcs for Mary (Sally Field) and Robert (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) were incomplete. “Saving Private Ryan” is still his best work.

November 16, 2012 @ 2:43 pm Ramses

Movie made me respect Lincoln all the more.

November 16, 2012 @ 9:06 pm Huff

Hear, hear!

November 18, 2012 @ 6:41 pm Eve

Daniel Day-Lewis is the greatest character actor alive today. The Oscar is his.

November 23, 2012 @ 7:13 am wrathofthetitans

nice biography movie,great watch.

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Government Lessons From Spielberg’s “Lincoln” Film Essay (Critical Writing)

Movie review, the objective, introduction, main lesson, relationship between teks and the movie.

Lincoln is a movie produced in the US in 2012 by Steven Spielberg, director, and Daniel Day-Lewis acting as President Abraham Lincoln. Sally Field is the president’s wife, Todd Lincoln. The movie is mainly concerned with the president’s last days when he was trying to push parliament to ratify the Thirteenth Amendment. While in his office, the head of state seems worried about the Emancipation Proclamation ratified in 1963 since slave states were expected to move to court to challenge the validity of the law. In the president’s view, the new law must be passed within the month to ensure the rights of the minorities and slaves are protected before the end of the war because chances of enslaving them would be minimal.

The type of government that is demonstrated in the movie is democratic since elections are held periodically to select the officials and each citizen is free to seek any position. This means individuals have voting rights as they are given the opportunity to choose leaders based on experience, manifestos, and their agendas for the country. Similarly, TEKS espouses the kind of governance structures illustrated in the movie since students are allowed to select the course units once they are in the higher levels of studies. In the movie, it is clear that an individual is allowed to select a leader of his or her choice once he or she attains a certain age. TEKS gives an individual a chance to decide what he or she desires in life as far as education is concerned. In the selection of leaders in TEKS, each student is given an opportunity to convince the panel that he or she is capable of delivering the institution’s objective and aim. This aspect is evident in the movie because citizens are allowed to vote freely for the bill or individual without much interference from the government. Unlike in other instructional plans and curriculums, TEKS allows an individual to go through various topics before moving on to the next level of study, something that allows knowledge accumulation and skill development. In the movie, citizens are provided with several ideas and their only responsibility is to select the best among the existing ones.

Government is a large organization charged with the responsibility of taking care of the wishes and the desires of all people in society. In other words, its main role is to provide an enabling environment that guarantees individual fulfillment. Based on this, it should have certain characteristics that allow it to function normally, one of them being the ability to communicate the agenda clearly. In the Movie, the president is in a position to communicate government programs undoubtedly through his representatives in the parliament. In the TEKS, the board always informs students of the expectations of each course unit, which proves the agenda is communicated openly. Another important feature of government is optimism meaning it should always be positive in what it does even though things might be heading in a bad direction. This would allow the citizens to adopt a similar approach leading to hard work and cooperation even in times of economic and political difficulties. In the Movie, the president is aware of the dangers of introducing the bill without waiting for the appropriate time, but he is optimistic about its passage and encourages members of his party to vote for it overwhelmingly.

The activity on the study of the form of government will help the students develop critical skills that would be applied in leadership. This would play a role in ensuring the bad qualities of leadership that interfere with goal achievement are eliminated and only the best practices, as witnessed in the movie, are adopted. Students will be encouraged to familiarize themselves with the major themes related to democracy.

First, students will learn that autocratic leadership does not allow consultations and the type of decisions made are usually of low quality. In many cases, autocratic leaders end up making defective policies that affect the quality of life and the standards of living in many societies. Students will understand that the movie and the TEKS standards are compatible in the sense that they both support openness, fairness, and impartiality in dealing with issues. In the movie, the president does not force his close policymakers to accept ideas without evaluating them carefully. After watching the movie, students will be expected to answer certain questions based on the tenets of democracy. Again, students will be instructed to form discussion groups in order to understand the themes clearly. Books will be provided to reinforce the student’s knowledge of democracy.

TEKS supports the form of government illustrated in the movie because it allows students to apply the instructional plan together with other additional learning materials. While in the institution of learning, students should understand that they are allowed to consult with their teachers freely, something that enhances cooperation and understanding. Democracy is a system of governance that encourages people to do as they wish in order to achieve personal goals. For purposes of creativity, innovativeness, and innovation, TEKS do not prevent students from coming up with something new that would develop knowledge. Based on this, TEKS supports the concept of democracy.

Democracy simply means allowing people to carry out their activities without much interruption from the authorities. It encourages members to participate in elections, respect human rights, and be sensitive to gender and racial issues. In this regard, democracy as a government concept is critical because it allows members to fulfill their wishes. Students will be evaluated to determine whether they understand the concepts through a review form and instructional rubric. Evaluation of students is critical as far as understanding their level of comprehension is concerned. Based on this, several instruments should be applied to achieve the desired results.

In TEKS, the instructional plan encourages all students to concentrate on their studies since they will achieve their interests through hard work and cooperation with teachers. Through the movie, it is noted that the authorities should be willing to listen to the pleas of affected individuals. An authority that is indifferent to the sufferings of the majority usually loses popularity and chances of it losing power and authority are high. In the movie, Lincoln’s government is always responsive to the desires of many meaning it prioritized dialogue and consultation whereby the views of various individuals are always taken into consideration. In the TEKS, listening is a valued aspect given the fact students are encouraged to present their challenges regarding the instructional plan since it would help the policymakers in planning and initiating changes

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“lincoln” 2012 movie review.

1849 words | 6 page(s)

“Lincoln” is a film directed by Steven Spielberg that was produced in 2012. A film about former president Abraham Lincoln, the film starred Daniel Day Lewis, Sally Field, David Strathairn, and Joseph Gordon-Levitt. Lewis played Abraham Lincoln, with Field starring as Mary Todd Lincoln, the first lady. Gordon-Levitt was Robert Todd Lincoln, the son of the president who attended Harvard and played a role in the Army. Strathairn had a highly political role as he depicted William Seward, the secretary of state during much of Lincoln’s presidency.

The film was a complex biography on Abraham Lincoln’s life, but it also focused on many of the issues that took place around the time that Lincoln took office. Lincoln’s life was especially tumultuous, as he presided in office while slavery was at its height and made several important decisions during the Civil War. Lincoln, of course, was murdered by John Wilkes Booth, and the film tells the story both of his life and his untimely death. The film’s initial focus is on the Emancipation Proclamation and some of the political gamesmanship that took place after its formation and conceptualization. Lincoln wanted to free the slaves quickly, but he and his fellow Republicans feared that their efforts would be stifled by political enemies who sought to take out their aggression on the rest of the country. The film centers on the back and forth that takes place between Lincoln and several political allies, as he is looking to build support for a constitutional amendment banning slavery. He is often forced to consider a wide range of different things, though, and he is forced to confront the reality that radical Republicans who support him will not go for any solution that allows slavery to stay intact. The film concludes with Lincoln letting Confederate leaders know that slavery could not continue, and it traces its way through the end of the Civil War. Finally, the film shows that Lincoln has been assassinated, the final culmination of his work and his life as something of a political adventurer.

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One of the primary strengths of this film, and what made it a real winner for me, was the quality of acting. Daniel Day Lewis played an exceptional Abraham Lincoln. He both had the look and the demeanor, displaying the ways in which Lincoln had to deftly maneuver in order to get his political agenda passed during a tough time in politics. Likewise, I liked the ways in which this film painted the picture of Lincoln’s internal struggle. It shows him meeting with individual members of the Union Army, and it even showed him making some contact with black soldiers. The film made an effort to show Lincoln as the calculated, reflective individual that he apparently was. Lincoln’s decision on slavery had many different elements. It was one part moralism and another part political expediency (Goodwin). The goal of the film was to show the many sides of Lincoln and ensure that people understood the political side of the decision to end slavery. I especially liked the ways in which the film showed the political aspect without getting bogged down in the difficult details.

The film raises tremendous issues and questions, but this is not exactly a weakness. For instance, it asks the question of just how much Lincoln was driven by his sense of moral justice and how much his decision to end slavery was driven by political motives. It makes the viewer question whether this inquiry even matters. If Lincoln was doing the right thing, does it really matter why he was doing so? In reality, his decision to end slavery had every bit as much of an effect on the people of the United States regardless of his ultimate motivation.

One of the aspects of the film that I did not particularly enjoy was the way in minimizes the death of Lincoln. Lincoln’s life was, of course, quite spectacular, and one could hardly expect the filmmakers to focus the bulk of their attention on the man’s death. Still, it seemed as if the death was an afterthought to the actual story. In reality, Lincoln’s death was every bit as much of the story as his life. It is important because it shows the real courage that it took for Lincoln to argue for reform. In the United States, a wide range of leaders who have spoken up for any kind of racial justice have been gunned down. From Lincoln to both Kennedys to Martin Luther King, Jr., this is a part of the enduring legacy of the United States. The fact that Lincoln paid with his life for his brave decision is an important aspect of Lincoln’s life that must be considered when one is thinking about Lincoln’s life. If I had been writing this movie or directing it, I would have focused more time on the death and its bigger implications.

With any film dealing with history, there are bound to be claims that the film distorted the real story, or, in some cases, made outright changes to suit an agenda. Lincoln was true to form in many regards, but there were some instances where the filmmaker stretched the truth in order to make a point and make the film more entertaining, too. One part of the film that is especially dramatized is the one where the two soldiers are reciting the Gettysburg address to Lincoln. This scene is designed to serve as something of an “ah-ha” moment for Lincoln. He hears a black soldier reciting his words, and the filmmakers use this device to show Lincoln making some important recognitions. According to many historians, this scene never took place. Many argue that it could not have taken place, either, because soldiers would not have been given that kind of unfettered access to the president. Likewise, many argue that while the Gettysburg address has been memorized by many today, it was not given the kind of wide acclaim back then. There is little chance that any person would have taken the time to memorize it during that period.

One of the most egregious changes to the real history of the time came when Spielberg and company changed the tally numbers on the vote to end slavery. In order to create more drama and try to emphasize the split in the country at the time, Spielberg got very creative, noting that some congress members voted “nay” on the amendment when they actually voted for the amendment. This could be seen as a biased move designed to depict the situation as more dire than it actually was. It could also be seen as a device used to make the movie more interesting. Whatever the case, the film’s creators did toy with this part of history, as it appears that the actual vote was much different than how it was portrayed.

There were many scenes involving congressman Thaddeus Stevens that were highly dramatized. While the film gets many things right about his contentious relationship with Mary Todd Lincoln, it is highly unlikely that they ever had a public spat like the one in the movie (Paludan). Likewise, historians suggest that Lincoln, while highly political in nature, would not have been observing House meetings from above. The movie uses this to highlight the fight between the two, but this is a liberty that the creators took in order to add more conflict. Likewise, Stevens himself is highly dramatized in a way that was probably not true. He is shown as being more contentious and disrespectful than he was in real life.

Likewise, the film botches the ending on how Lincoln looked when he died. In the film, Lincoln dies in his night gown, looking very comfortable. In real life, Lincoln died naked, as the doctors had been looking at his wounds in order to try and save his life (Nicolay). While this may seem like a small thing, it is another sign of how the film’s creators simply threw in the president’s death as something of an add-on to the movie.

It would be difficult to suggest that the film adds anything to the public consciousness on Abraham Lincoln. As one of the most popular presidents of all-time, Lincoln has been highly studied and scrutinized by all sorts of different people over the last century and a half. What the film does do, however, is highlight some of the truths on Lincoln. It also brings out the personality of his wife and family members more than any other work. These are the characters that are often forgotten by history, but the film shows the ways that they played an important role both in Lincoln’s life and in the political debate that raged on during that time.

The film helps to “color” Lincoln. By this, it is meant that the film adds detail and helps to create the kind of complex picture that truly respects who Lincoln was as both a president and as a man. Throughout the film, Lincoln is shown as a person willing to listen to many different perspectives. He is also showed as a highly political man. In some parts of the academic world, there is a tendency to romanticize about Lincoln. This film does its fair share of that, but one area where it refuses to romanticize is on the question of Lincoln’s willingness to engage in political interplay. As the film’s creators show, Lincoln is every bit as involved in the political fray as those around him. This is perhaps the reason why Lincoln was able to negotiate one of the most important pieces of legislation in the history of America.

This film brings about a wide range of different lessons that can be learned. It is a film that treats history with a complex brush. The Civil War, the Emancipation Proclamation, and other Lincoln-related events are often dealt with in history books with a very simplistic approach. Rather than viewing the situation as a complex one that demanded lots of political maneuvering, those books paint the president’s decision as a simple one. Any person viewing this movie will know much more about Lincoln, his decision-making processes, and the things that caused him to want to put an end to slavery. While the movie is not completely true to history, it is true enough to history that it can be used to supplement any academic discussion on the nature of Lincoln. Overall, it is a strong film, and the presence of Daniel Day Lewis makes it even stronger. Lewis gives Lincoln the kind of performance that he needs, and the creators of the film were willing to stay true enough to history so that “Lincoln” would not become a biased farce of a film.

Goodwin, Doris Kearns. Team of rivals: The political genius of Abraham Lincoln. SimonandSchuster. com, 2005.
Nicolay, John George, and John Hay. Abraham Lincoln: a history. Vol. 10. Century Company, 1917.
Paludan, Phillip Shaw. The Presidency of Abraham Lincoln. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1994.

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‘Lincoln’ Film

Film “Lincoln” is American historical drama, which was produced in 2012. Its main theme is technically based on the last months of Abraham Lincoln the president of United States of America. The film was directed and produced by Steven Spielberg in the comprehensive pictorial representation of political life. The main cast of the drama is Daniel Day-Lewis who plays the role of the United States president from the old colonial rulings, which were dominated by organizations and unions. The producer directed the film in the context of the Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln, which conveys his intelligence in solving many complicated situations that could have caused loss of life and property. Controversial is its general role of Abraham Lincoln, which depicts the President’s efforts in adoption of the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitutions in 1865, which changed the leadership and the assassination of the president of the United States of America, Abraham Lincoln that followed. Unlike many other themes which are not directly linked to our general, movie “Lincoln”, which is history, drama and biography genre categories, provides the viewer with a wide and rich perspective of different life situations. In this drama, many topics or aspects of life have been touched by the president of the United States in the old colonial periods. The old states of America, which were divided into the northern and the southern part, had waged wars between each other. Therefore, many lessons can be learned from this film especially how to solve the wars and how a leader should be able to tell the difference between the good, which can be justified, and different groups, which divide people in the society into poor and rich.

As the film starts, in the beginning it demonstrates the oppression of the poor by the rich, who naturally want to take the little the poor can afford. This develops the theme of slavery which is depicted and illustrated by the nature of the film.

Therefore, the film encompasses a rich showdown in which the poor are oppressed by the rich, who are the controlling assets in the southern region of the United States. In his political ambitions, Lincoln finds himself in the middle of the civil war which breaks the United States into two, northern and southern parts. Film illustrates the leadership roles created by the leaders; it is the lesson for leaders to help themselves and others to raise their souls, and sacrifice themselves, for the better lives of their people.

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Lincoln movie review & film summary (2012)
The hallmark of the man, performed so powerfully by Daniel Day-Lewis in "Lincoln," is calm self-confidence, patience and a willingness to play politics in a realistic way. The film focuses on the final months of Lincoln's life, including the passage of the 13th Amendment ending slavery, the surrender of the Confederacy and his assassination.
Lincoln Movie Review Essay
Lincoln Movie Review Essay. Period 6. The movie Lincoln, directed by the infamous Steven Spielberg, is based on the life of Abraham Lincoln and his efforts to pass the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which would abolish slavery completely. With the assumption that the Civil War would end in one month, however, Abraham ...
Lincoln by Steven Spielberg: A Movie Review Essay
Lincoln was a good illustration of a leadership style that greatly benefited American society. The qualities of a true leader, like intelligence, tenacity, self-assurance, integrity, and social connection, were all present in the movie "Lincoln.". The Thirteenth Amendment was accepted because of Lincoln's political will, impetus, and ...
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Steven Spielberg has crafted a literate, heartfelt film about Abraham Lincoln's second term in office and his battle to end slavery, with a masterful central performance Peter Bradshaw Thu 24 Jan ...
Lincoln Movie Reflection: [Essay Example], 680 words
His legacy is explored in the 2012 film "Lincoln," directed by Steven Spielberg and starring Daniel Day-Lewis in the titular role. This movie offers a glimpse into Lincoln's presidency during the tumultuous Civil War era, focusing on his efforts to pass the 13th Amendment to abolish slavery. In this essay, I will reflect on the themes ...
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Even though the methods used while the process do not always deserve pride, the entire adoption process is a good example of successful political technique of the early American democracy. The movie is based on the book Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln. We will write a custom essay on your topic. 809 writers online.
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Sat 26 Jan 2013 19.06 EST. S teven Spielberg has made more obviously entertaining and more emotionally seductive movies than Lincoln, but this is for him the most brave and, for the audience, most ...
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Views: 2272. Grade: 4.8. Download. Steven Spielberg has made all the more clearly engaging and more sincerely tempting motion pictures than Lincoln, yet this is for him the most overcome and, for the crowd, most requesting picture in the a long time since his development as a noteworthy chief. It's a film about statesmanship, legislative issues ...
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Directed by Steven Spielberg. Biography, Drama, History, War. PG-13. 2h 30m. By A.O. Scott. Nov. 8, 2012. It is something of a paradox that American movies — a great democratic art form, if ever ...
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This is the power and the surprise of "Lincoln.". Directed by Steven Spielberg, written by Tony Kushner and starring Daniel Day-Lewis as the 16th president of the United States, "Lincoln ...
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Genre: Drama. Running time: 159 minutes. Rated PG-13 for an intense scene of war violence, some images of carnage and brief strong language. With: Daniel Day Lewis, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Tommy Lee ...
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Lincoln biographer Ronald White critiques the accuracy of Stephen Spielberg's new film about the Great Emancipator. White says that while not every detail of the film is true, "the delicate ...
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The wall-to-wall talk and lack of much Civil War action might give off the aroma of schoolroom medicine to some, but the elemental drama being played out, bolstered by the prestige of the ...
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Lincoln is a masterpiece of filmmaking and is an unforgettable film to watch in a theater. It will be nominated for an array of Oscars with wins most likely for Day-Lewis and Spielberg. Daniel Day-Lewis may be the most gifted actor currently working when his chooses to take on a role, which only happens every other year or so (everybody still ...
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Lincoln' Movie Review: Critical Essay. This essay sample was donated by a student to help the academic community. Papers provided by EduBirdie writers usually outdo students' samples. Lincoln directed by Steven Spielberg, was made not too long ago in 2012. Because this film was produced relatively recently, the production quality was obviously ...
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A Review of the Movie "Lincoln"
A Review of the Movie "Lincoln". This is a movie review of the movie Lincoln, and the author discusses how the actors, directions, and humor contribute to the movie's success. This essay received a B by one of Kibin's paper graders. Click here to see what was done well and what needs improvement.
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Attract Only the Top Grades. Order Now. "Lincoln" is a film directed by Steven Spielberg that was produced in 2012. A film about former president Abraham Lincoln, the film starred Daniel Day Lewis, Sally Field, David Strathairn, and Joseph Gordon-Levitt. Lewis played Abraham Lincoln, with Field starring as Mary Todd Lincoln, the first lady.
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'Lincoln' Film
Film "Lincoln" is American historical drama, which was produced in 2012. Its main theme is technically based on the last months of Abraham Lincoln the president of United States of America. The film was directed and produced by Steven Spielberg in the comprehensive pictorial representation of political life.